


it's always darkest before the dawn

by bowlingfornerds



Series: tumblr prompts [1]
Category: The 100
Genre: Camp Jaha, Canon Universe, Comforting, Fluff, M/M, mountain men, post 2x16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-19 05:00:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4733609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bowlingfornerds/pseuds/bowlingfornerds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr prompt from vegan-avocado-zombie on tumblr: Okay, Minty and post mt. weather where Miller comforts Monty, or something like that :-D (I actually don't care about the setting that much so if you want to write a modern AU pls do)</p><p>Set after the mountain fell, in the season finale of The 100. Miller comforts Monty by the fire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's always darkest before the dawn

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter title from the song 'Shake It Out' (Cannot remember the artist to save my life).
> 
> Violently unbeta'd.
> 
> Enjoy.

Camp Jaha was quieter than Nathan Miller had thought it was going to be. When he trailed in the line of dleiquinets, bloodied and bruised, clutching guns to their chests like stuffed toys, he assumed there would be a party waiting for them. He really wanted one, oddly. Miller thought as he walked that he’d had enough of the survival game he’d been dragged into – for one night, he wanted to be a teenager; the type he was before he was locked up, anyway.

So he was surprised when he stepped past the gate and found the camp earily quiet. People stared at the criminals, saved from the mountain, as they entered. He felt the eyes on him as he lead the group, at the front with his father, just as silent as everyone else. There wasn’t a party, but he was hugged by many strangers and was transported from place to place in big groups, and downed as much moonshine as he could – which was as close to a party as he was going to get.

Throughout it all, though, Miller noticed Monty, silent and on the outskirts. Miller would draw a line from him to his best friend, Jasper, blatantly not speaking, and glaring into the air. He was going to ask what had happened, but it didn’t feel like his business, so he let the guards escort him away and take his gun, no matter how tightly he held onto it.

That evening, he sat with Harper, still shivering no matter how many blankets were wrapped around her, in front of a fire. There were three, dotted around the camp, with the guards wandering just out of the light, and the delinquents leaning as close to the heat as possible. Miller sat up, though, feeling as if the group he’d formed for himself in the mountain wasn’t complete. Both Jasper and Monty were absent, so he stood up to look over the heads, hoping to find their faces.

Miller spotted Jasper first, sitting at the next fire over, a single blanket draped around his shoulders as he stared blankly into the flames. There was a plate of untouched food at his feet, and everyone gave him a wide berth – the aura of depression radiating off of him like a repellent. He swallowed over the thought of Maya, still in the mountain with her people, but he pushed it away. Even if they were in a moment of peace, thinking of the dead would just hold him back – and he needed to be on top of his emotions if he was going to be a guard, and help Bellamy keep their people safe (he’d noticed Clarke’s absence and questioned it earlier, only to watch the eldest Blake’s face close off and his back retreat into his tent).

Miller didn’t want to speak to Jasper right then, though – he wanted to make sure Monty was okay, after the way he had trailed behind at the back of the group when going to Camp Jaha, and how he’d been taken by the Mountain Men and kept in a cage. He excused himself from Harper, who was too busy shivering and leaning on another girl – Monroe, he thought – to listen, and wandered away from his fire and to the next.

Monty was on the furthest fire, sitting by himself with a single blanket wrapped around him, curled forward as if he was trying to make his body as small as possible. Miller wasn’t aware that the corners of his lips tilted upwards; the beginnings of a smile; just at the sight of him – but he could’ve guessed from the way his feet directed him towards the smaller boy without hesitation.

Monty jumped when Miller sat down, but relaxed at the sight of him.

“Oh,” he sighed, trying to smile but not managing it. Miller swallowed a little, nodding and looking into the embers.

“How are you?” He asked quietly, before reprimanding himself for it. How could Monty be okay, after all he’d gone through? Monty just hummed non-committedly in response. They stayed quiet for a moment, and Miller noticed that Monty seemed quieter than the rest of the camp; like the dull humming in the background that had been there all day was disappearing now he was in his vicinity.

“Clarke’s gone, you know?” Monty asked, looking over. Miller swallowed and nodded.

“I thought so,” he sighed.

“She hugged me at the gate. I don’t get it.”

“Get what?”

“Why she thought she was more to blame than the rest of us.” Miller looked over, noticing the sadness etched into the smaller boy’s face. He was younger than Miller by about a year, and in that moment, he felt as if it was an even larger age gap between them; like Monty was trying to make himself smaller and younger, more innocent and less likely to have been in somewhere like the mountain in the first place. The silence in which Miller noticed this gave Monty another chance to speak. “I was the one who did this – I killed Maya and all those people.” Miller raised his eyebrows in surprise, but didn’t move otherwise.

He had no idea how to comfort him; was hugging on the table, or would that be too uncomfortable?

“Clarke wanted me to figure out how to leak radiation into level five,” Monty admitted. “If I hadn’t done that, all of those people would still be alive… I killed them, Nathan, I killed them.” Monty dropped his head into his hands, and Miller’s arm automatically reached around the other boy’s shoulders like muscle memory. He ignored the feeling in his stomach that he got when his first name had been said, as opposed to his last, just tried to focus on Monty and his shaking body.

“You did what you had to do,” Miller told him firmly. “You saved us all, in there.” Monty looked up, and tracks shone down his face in the light of the fire. His body still shook, and Miller shifted closer, like he would for anyone, he told himself. “If it weren’t for you, we would have all died – all the rest of the 100, you, Clarke, _me_.” He swallowed, unable to look at Monty anymore. “It sucks, what happened – but it happened all the same.”

“What about Jasper?” Monty croaked, and Miller thought of the way that the other boy had sat, like the world was on his shoulders and he was willing to let it crush him.

“Jasper will be okay,” he replied.

“He hates me.”

“He’ll get over it eventually.” Monty nodded, and while Miller was sure that he wasn’t actually feeling any better, he swiped at his cheeks anyway, sitting up. Miller refused to let his arm fall from Monty’s shoulders as the younger boy nodded, the corners of his lips tilting up in a smile – less fake than the first one he’d tried. And that, Miller guessed, was progress.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt me on tumblr at bowlingfornerds or down here in the comments.


End file.
